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Shooting Investigation

Footage obtained by the Hunt Saboteurs Association lays bare what really lies beyond the shooting industry’s propaganda. Millions of pheasants are intensively reared in game farms for nothing more than to be live targets for wealthy shooters.

The birds used for breeding are confined to tiny wire cages whereby artificial lighting is used to trick them into believing it is daylight and so increase egg production. The females, unable to escape the male’s repetitive mating, receive severe wounds to their backs and the industry’s answer to this is to fit them with ‘saddles’, pieces of cloth that allow the male to continue mating and thus again increase egg production. The extreme stress of life in a cage causes feather-pecking among the birds and cruel, plastic devises known in the industry as ‘masks’ are fitted into the pheasants’ beaks as a result. ‘Scalping’ also occurs. This is the name given to the wounds on a bird’s head that are a result of impacts with the top of the cage from many futile attempts to escape. Many birds do not survive this process and their bodies are simply dumped in large pits.

The chicks are artificially incubated in hatching facilities before being crammed into sheds where they spend seven to eight weeks before being packed into crates and sold off to shoots across the country. Again, the stress of this causes the birds to peck at each other and often resort to cannibalism. ‘Bits’ are clamped onto their nostrils in a cruel attempt to prevent damage to other birds and, as a result, lost profits.

Take action! Please tip us off with any information you may have about a local shoot, game farm or any other wildlife persecution. Together we can put an end to this vast, horrific industry.